


Bosmer Unbound

by ofthenora



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Dragonborn - Freeform, Gen, OC Story, bosmer - Freeform, unbound - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-17 13:27:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11276214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofthenora/pseuds/ofthenora
Summary: I thought I'd left it all behind when I turned my back on the roaming woods of Valenwood. It was not for me to live by the Bosmer way of life. I came here to leave it all behind, to start anew. And then came the ambush, the fear, the end. End of the line.





	Bosmer Unbound

**Author's Note:**

> This is where it begins.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. This was supposed to be my escape. A chance to reconsruct and weave my own story as I believed it should be. Instead, it seems like I’m the one that condemned myself. The Divines must have been furious with me, yet delighted to have another soul to tamper with. I never should have trusted the silence in the wind. No. I never should have left home. I close my eyes and images of the woods and the golden sunlight filtering through their willowy branches reflects back on my eyelids. Valenwood. That is my home. Was my home.

I had to leave, they left me no choice. "Taste the soil in their skin, the history of the light in their hair, the stories of their life in their blood. Revel in the knowledge and power of your kill. You know what we must do, Artemisan. You are of our blood. You know what we must do." That's what my father had said to me. I could still see the unblinking eyes, the too still limbs, the scarlet patch blossoming in the furs where my arrow had pierced the marauder, ended their life. "You know what we must do." I couldn't do it. I couldn't flee the taste of another's blood in my mouth forever. I had to leave.

My skin itches and aches where the ropes that binds my wrists rubs. Despite the constant bumps and dips in the paved road, my limbs feel heavy and numb. Or maybe that’s from the fear. I sit in the last carriage in a convoy of four. Prisoners of war, thieves, bandits. And one Bosmer that got caught in the middle of a war when she tried to cross the border. Three other men, each bound in much the same way as I am share my carriage, my fate. Nords of Skyrim. All three of them. The soldier across from me, a hulking man with a once kind face hardened by warfare turns to the other by his side, the blonde braids weaved through his hair swinging slightly with the movement of the carriage.

But for some reason, it’s not the inevitability of my own death that shakes me so deeply. A deep sense of foreboding weighs down my bones, makes the air somehow both too thick and too thin to breathe. I could feel it almost as soon as I had set foot on the snow-dampened soil of Skyrim. Something was wrong. Something was coming.

Maybe it was a fore sense for my own death. Maybe. But I think back to the instances where I had been within inches of my own life, bouncing carelessly through the highest branches of the woods as a child, only barely feeling the snap of the branch before the falling. Then my first hunt truly alone, far from the borders of the territory I had honed my skills in, when I had stumbled alone into the territory of pillagers while tracking a herd of elks. I had not yet learnt the skill of a blade other than a hunting knife. I had to learn quick. The scars had faded quickly enough from my skin, but not from my mind. Both those times, I had felt the weight of premonition. Neither of those instances could equate to this. I shiver and although I am dressed in the thinnest of prisoner’s garbs I know it’s not from the chill. Something was coming.

The carriage stops and the Nord beside the soldier startles. I echo the soldier’s words in my mind. End of the line.

The thief tries to run. He doesn’t get far. Some of the other Stormcloak soldiers spit into the soil, in the faces of the Imperial soldiers that condemn them. Even so close to death, Nords show unwavering ferocity and steel. Most of them at least.

“Wait . . . you there.” An Imperial soldier with deep, dark set eyes turns his attention to me, a parchment and quill in his hands. “Who are you?”  
The words come naturally from my mouth, like water pouring from a vase yet it is not I who wills my mouth to move. “Artemisan. Of Valenwood.”  
“Not many wood elves would choose to come alone to Skyrim.” He then turns to the helmeted captain. “Captain what should we do? She’s not on the list.”  
“Forget the list. She goes straight to the block.”  
I know my fate but hearing my condemnation sound so insignificant rattles me even more. That’s the only time I feel something other than the anxiety bubble up in me. A sudden, cold loathing for the metal plated soldiers.

Then a sound like thunder rumbles through the sky, shaking the air around us. But I know better. There will be no lightning with this storm.

The general ignores it and the soldiers go back to their business, their worries quickly forgotten by the ice in their captain’s voice. But mere men’s hearing is not as acute as us mer. Nor do they understand the shift in the wind, the darkness in the clouds. They don't realise how close it is. Whatever it is.

“To the block prisoner. Nice and easy.” I can feel my legs shaking, moving, but it’s like I’m not in my own body. Like I’m looking through the eyes of another as I move towards the block. I hardly feel the cold scrape of the block or the steel plated boot in my back as I’m shoved down. The pressure is so great in my veins that all I can do is stare into the sky. My breath has left me, my will and desperation to fight extinguished. I see the gleaming of the headsman’s axe from the corner of my eye, barely register the headsman begin the arc that will end where my head meets my shoulders.

That’s when I see it.

The sky-shattering roar, talons as long as a mer's arm clutching the stone. Black ridged scales as impenetrable as the thickest plate mail, thick leathery skin stretching over bones as thick and strong as tree roots and large as sails, fierce crimson eyes. The powerful jaws rip open into a snarl, revealing jagged teeth sharper than the finest forged blades. Its Voice rips the very air around us, staggering man and mer alike. 

We'd heard the legends. We'd known it was foolish to think such a beast was only a legend. Its name makes my blood ring in my ears. 

Dragon.


End file.
